General-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) agent Manus, which was developed by a Chinese team, faces doubts about its technological capabilities, as very few people were able to test the product owing to an apparent shortage of server capacity after a surge in popularity.
While Manus has gained attention for its claimed ability to handle complex tasks, and is being hailed by investors as another breakthrough following the low-cost AI models from DeepSeek, its availability remains limited a day after launch. The firm’s account on social media X was also suspended on Friday.
The invitation-only arrangement spurred a scramble among users seeking to access Manus. On China’s second-hand online marketplace Xianyu, some vendors were even selling Manus invitation codes or renting out accounts, with some critics accusing the team behind Manus of intentionally deploying scarcity marketing tactics.
“The current invite-only mechanism is due to genuinely limited server capacity at this stage,” Manus AI’s product partner Zhang Tao said in a social media post on Thursday afternoon. Zhang apologised, admitting the team underestimated the enthusiasm of the public response, and initially intended only to share some achievements from the AI agent. Consequently, their server resources were planned to only meet a demonstration level.
“The current version of Manus is still in its infancy, far from what we aim to deliver in our final product,” Zhang added.
Meanwhile, the Manus team’s official account on X was suspended for violating the platform’s rules. “Peak” Yichao Ji, co-founder and chief scientist of Manus, said the team was “actively working with X’s support team to resolve this matter”.
The suspension was potentially linked to cryptocurrency scams by unrelated third-party accounts attempting to capitalise on its traffic.
